This Sunday I started with a typical trip to the market: a well-planned grocery list riding happily in my purse, reusable bag clutched under my arm, and a twenty tucked in my pocket. The list looked something like this:

• garlic
• apples
• sweet potatos
• red onion
• bananas

I had good intentions, really. Under normal circumstances I’m sensibly faithful to my purchase plan. But in an inexplicable, rapid-onset frenzy of produce gluttony, the noble list was ditched and the respectable basket of apples and garlic was suddenly bulging under the weight of things whose names had never graced the list at all – persimmons, rapini, spaghetti squash, meyer lemons, blood oranges and fresh dates, to name a few. Though the vegetable-fever lasted only minutes, it was long enough for greens to fly and for impulse decisions to be made. The reusable bag was soon outnumbered by plastic counterparts, and the twenty was ousted for the Mastercard.

Among my grocery-basket captives was a curious head of lettuce, one that I’d never used before. They called it Endive Lettuce, but I was suspicious. It looked an awful lot like escarole which I knew was related to the endive. And since these veggie-mongers were also touting Meyer lemons under the pseudonym “Sweet Lemons”, I knew the nomenclature here was not to be trusted. (more…)

Whoopie pie. I think the name alone has the power to coax feelings of glee from even the toughest old birds. In fact, when I announced to my friends that I intended to make them, the mmmmm’s and ooooooh’s far preceded the ‘what is it?’s.

My childhood memory of this gleefully-named treat is of eager anticipation and zealous consumption. Oversized cakey chocolate cookies with an oozing marshmallow-y filling would stickify my hands, face, and whatever surfaces got between me and my enthusiasm for the whoopie-filled treat. I can still see my mother crouched in front of the hot oven, mitts donned, and nose centimeters from the steamy window to watch the rising mounds of chocolaty batter (yes, it is from my mom that I inherited my squat-and-stare approach to oven use).

The chocolate part of a whoopie pie thicker than cake, but lighter than cookie. Traditionally, where I come from anyway, they are filled with a billowing mound of marshmallow frosting. Many recipes include Fluff, but I prefer a 7-minute frosting. In my version, rich chocolaty cookies sandwich a pile of creamy, caramel frosting. (more…)